Put simply, you can make Firefox look and act however you like – and the same can’t be said for Chrome.

Install Any Extension You Want

For years addons were the main reason to use Firefox instead of Chrome. Put simply: Firefox had what you were looking for and Chrome didn’t.

That’s changed. As Chrome’s market share grows, so does the attention developers give the browser – and it shows. Chrome users switching to Firefox will find the Evernote extension, for example, a trip back in time. I’m sure you can think of other examples: it seems like many developers release on Chrome first and on Firefox if users eventually ask for it.

So if Chrome arguably has the advantage now, why bring addons up in this article? Because Google’s been locking things down.

Google #chrome just disabled an add-on I installed because it's "not from Chrome Web Store." No way to re-enable it. Byebye, Chrome.

Earlier this year Chrome prevented users from installing any addons outside the Chrome Web Store. Recently they’ve gone even further: they’re actively deleting extensions users previously installed. Chrome is now the iOS of browsers, allowing only approved addons to run.

This isn’t entirely without reason: there’s a potential for malware in browser extensions, and some extension makers take liberties Google would rather not see (like changing the default search engine). So the filtering may be helpful to some users, but other users want control. On our own computers, we want the freedom to install whatever extensions we want – regardless of whether Google approves of them.

Which brings us to Firefox. There’s an official Firefox addon site, which offers users addons known to be safe. But you’re not limited to using it: you can install addons from any site on the web that offers them – all you need to do is click through a warning. Installing random addons without vetting them first is stupid, of course, but that’s part of what freedom means: the ability to do stupid things.

If you want that freedom, Firefox is the clear choice.

Use Advanced Addons

So Google limits your choice of addons to things they’ve approved for inclusion in their web store, but that doesn’t matter if all the addons you want are there. Are they?

Not necessarily. For good or for ill, Chrome gives extension developers less access to the browser’s core functionally. This means some Firefox addons are capable of things no Chrome extension could be.

For example: DownThemAll developer Nils Maier said in a blog post that providing all the capabilities of his addon – an advanced download manager – would be impossible on Chrome.

“Basically,” wrote Maier, “this new API enables extensions to use the Chrome download manager, but doesn’t give control over the request, data streams and/or low-level details themselves.”

Popular webdev tool Firebug is in a similar situation: Chrome doesn’t give developers as much control, making it impossible to completely recreate Firebug for that browser. Chrome’s built in tools partially make up for this, as does Firebug Lite for Chrome is a mostly web-based compromise. But if you want FireBug, you need to use Firefox.

Add Search Keywords In Just A Few Clicks

Here’s a Firefox tip most users don’t know: you can add any search box to the Firefox URL bar in just a few clicks. Simply right-click the box on any site, then click “add a keyword for this search”.

You’ll see a prompt; simply name the bookmark, then pick a short keyword.

Now you can search your site of choice anytime by typing the keyword, followed by your search terms.

It’s a small thing, sure, but if there are a few sites you search regularly it can save you a lot of time. There are similar tricks out there for Chrome, but none this simple. Troll me if you don’t think this belongs here; I just thought it was useful.

There’s More… Fill Us In!

Of course, there’s more. I could talk about Firefox’s superior autocomplete functionality, or how Firefox isn’t run by a company that primarily profits by tracking users’ web activity for the purpose of showing relevant advertising.

I could, but I think it’s more fun if you make sure points in the comments below. Or, if you’re a huge Chrome fan, you can point out Chrome features fox fans are missing out on. Let the flame wars begin, but keep it civil!

One feature I like which Firefox allows is to prevent websites from choosing their own fonts. I like this on for example Craigslist. I dislike the Times Roman font, and prefer Arial. Simple uncheck the box under Content, Fonts, to not allow websites to choose their own fonts. And I agree, Firefox is the fastest, most flexible web browser available. Thanks for the great article.

My favourite Firefox feature is "live bookmarks", which allows you to view an RSS feed as a list of bookmarks. For years, I kept a copy of FF just for this one feature, which no other browser has (there are Chrome extensions for the purpose, but they suck). The customisability is also awesome. I like Chrome's single search/address bar. Guess what - there's an add on for that!

Performances wise, both Chrome & Firefox have had their ups and downs over the years. At the moment I find FF is discernably faster than Chrome, but this could easily change in next month's edition...

Non off them is great, I have been used Firefox for years but in last months the Crash problem made me angry (I conducted some solutions were available on Internet but none of them were useful from deactivate Graphic Accelerator to deactivate Plugins and Add-ons) so the final solution is to switch to another browser, I chose Chrome although some of great Firefox features doesn't exist here (for example one of Add-on I used was only provided for Firefox or Search Engines or RSS) but at all It's very better and have a better dynamic function.

In primarily use Firefox on both Mac and Linux Mint and do not experience crashes. In fact in FF on Linux I have tabs that have been kept reopened on browser startup for around a year. I use some developer addons plus a calendaring one and a few utility ones.

***A few years ago I had problems with speed and stability in Firefox but I traced those issues down to a couple of addons.***

I also use Chrome, Chromium, Opera and Safari (with few or no addons) as well as a few lesser known browsers. I also occasionally use IE (to download better browsers and for testing purposes). Chrome is nice, but FF handles cPanel with less work required of me and has the dev tools of my choice.

A tip for Windows Chrome users- for XP, run 'msconfig', for Windows 7, 'sysconfig'. When the menu pops up, go to 'services' and uncheck the two boxes marked 'Google Updater'- once you reboot, you won't have any automatic updates for Google Chrome which these two settings have running in the background.

For Linux users, instead of installing all updates from the update manager, periodically refresh Synaptic (or RPM)---check the items you want, if there's a Chrome update, keep in unchecked and you'll have your version stay intact.

Don't know about Macs, but there should be something similar to Windows to keep the automatic Chrome/Google updates from occurring.

I have used Netscape Communicator / Mozilla Org /
Firerfox from day one (2002 I think). Apart from dabbling with Opera occasionally I have never found a browser to beat it.

A bit like Linux, it hasn't been attached to a major "content provider" since AOLreleased it into the wild with IBM and Sun backing money. It is now entirely independant and for that reason alone it is worth supporting.

Here in Denmark, and in Norway too I believe, most (if not all) online banking solutions require Java. Also a lot of other secure online services require the same Java based component (in Denmark called NemID) for identification purposes. This - thankfully - is about to be changed in the future though.

Truly Chrome has better bandwidth results , stability is a little better, and java script sites load better. Chrome , today has become the de facto standard of most users in web but for most users. But have we sincerely asked ourselves that our search data may be embarrassing or even being used for illegal purposes. The storage of data , tracking is fine for providing services and stuff , but controversies have arisen when we rely on a single service of domination. Are articles of Electronic Frontier Organization not enough to change our habits to a small extent?

most people use what comes with the box without even being aware there are choices they can make that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make those choices. Recyling used to the pet meme of a few loons but now it has gone mainstream. Its easy to search outside google from any browser just type in ddg.gg to get a dedicated non-tracking browser or it is easy to install as default with (ahem) FF Add-ons.

Yes Michael, you are right, another generality of users using google services.
Still I do not belive in using such a browser from a company that contrasts to
&& Don't be evil&& , if you wish to keep privacy. I understand that most of google chrome source code is not open source, chromium is.

Man, if only Firefox could spend 5 minutes without crashing even with a single tab opened on Windows 7/8.1... I loved Firefox but now I just can't use it without getting a lot of frustration... and the worse part is every other browser is now a Chrome wannabe, including Firefox.

I thought the tip about search engines was a bit off. So, I went and checked.

To add a search engine for a site directly(such as reddit..), I can right click in the search box, and add the site to the search engine. You have the same options as firefox, really it's pretty standard.

It *might* work to use site:makeuseof.com %s for sites that don't have a search page/or it's not easy to find.*

Chrome's extension capabilities are lousy compared to Firefox. In order to get a digital clock on Chrome, I had to install *two* extensions (one to get hours, separate extensions for 12-hour and 24-hour time, and a second one to get minutes). Each extension was limited to a tiny button on the bar, and this was the extension author's way of getting around that.
A newer extension put the hours in the top left, the minutes in the bottom right.
Another extension added a tiny icon with an *analog* clock.
And, since the extensions had to update the image on a regular, 60-second interval, *all* of them leaked memory like a sieve.

Firefox, on the other hand, can create an icon, add text, and pretty much have the run of the whole browser's UI. My favorite clock extension is Simple Clocks, which lets me add as many digital clocks (separate time zones) as I want, including adding the date.

DownThemAll! is also awesome - it replaces an old, paid app called GetRight, which one of my friends loved. Multi-threaded downloads, pause and resume, and the ability to grab *all* the files on a page...what's not to love?

Love the fact I can ditch the Australis theme with Classic Theme Restorer, as well...put the small orange Firefox button back instead of the lousy, generic "hamburger" button, square tabs back...easy as pi.

I am using Firefox 30.0 on an iMac. The past few versions of Firefox have caused the browser to crash more frequently without anything else changing. I feel better knowing that others are experiencing the same thing.

Well yeah it might be Windows causing the issue, I've been running Firefox on Linux Mint and Xubuntu, it literally never crashes, never, no matter how much you overload it, but you have to admit that repeated crashes in Windows and even Mac is half way gone for countless people to see no benefit of using Firefox and jumping the ship and step right into Chrome or even IE. Blaming Windows here is not going to help in any way.

"Blaming Windows here is not going to help in any way."
Maybe if more people took M$ to task more often, it might bring about some improvement, although I doubt it. M$ has never missed an opportunity to undermine the competition. Goes back to the days of "Windows isn't done until DR-DOS won't run"

I, too, have been using FF/Iceweasel on numerous Linux distros and never had any problems that were not self-inflicted.

" It’s their job, not Window’s."
Under normal circumstances I would agree with you. However, M$ has a history of sabotaging its competitors going back to "Windows is not done until DR-DOS won't run." So, in this case, it IS Microsoft's job.

I use iMacros for Firefox mainly because it's sucky in Chrome. Oh and the wide range of add-ons for Firefox is just a good thing. Though, I still use Chrome for plain browsing because it boots faster. I use Firefox for heavy-duty tasks.

I never use "search keywords" like the article talks about, but bookmark keywords I use in Firefox all the time. Chrome doesn't have this functionality. You need to use the mouse to open a bookmark. There are keyboard workarounds but they're not very good.

Someone already mentioned Chrome's lack of a bookmarks sidebar. I actually use Chrome occasionally, but Firefox will remain my first choice and primary browser because of its bookmarks sidebar, which I use extensively.
In that regard, I find Google horribly insensitive to user input. A huge number of Chrome users have been requesting a bookmarks sidebar for YEARS yet Google has ignored the requests. Mozilla seems to give at least some attention to user input while the folks at Google develop whatever they please and then cop a "take-it-or-leave-it" attitude.

It really seems like Chrome has gone downhill since it's release. One of my favorite things about chrome is how it lets you search a specific website from the address bar while you're typing in the url and i like the quick launch app drawer and I like being able to switch profiles with one click.
I'm using an older version of Firefox because it seems like many of the extensions that I love always break with any new update and many of the developers have stopped updating the add-ons. I'm using an older version of chrome canary because it has some of the options from newer chrome builds and I can still install crx chrome files and it doesn't look like they've disabled any of them. Tampermonkey and Greasemonkey are good to be able to customize your browsing experience without limitations.
I'm looking forward to see how the Android apps on chrome goes that Google mentioned during the io keynote.

So the first three, alright. Oh no. Can't customize, and oh no, my add-ons. But the last one, I search is just false. If you've searched a website before in chrome threes this cool thing you can do, press tab. It will let you search the site without going to it.

for me, Chrome has one big advantage over Firefox: it doesn't crash on me. I used Firefox for years and never considered switching, until about 26 or 27 it just started randomly crashing with annoying frequency. Yes, I tried everything, and if you google this, you'll see I'm not alone. I don't know what they did, but it completely broke the browser for me and forced a move to Chrome. Which I had to get used to, but now like.

I have played with Chrome and still do, but I can't even come close to modifying it like I can Firefox. It is impossible to due some of the tab changes available in Firefox because what I'd like to change is written into the core program and can not be modified. I have discussed such issues many times with top notch extension writers who have explained why certain things just can't be changed.

I would love to just go back to Firefox, but Chrome has Google Voice that I use for text/chat with my Google phone number every single day. Last time I checked, Firefox didn't have this or anything comparable--or at least didn't have it where I could just click the little extension icon and do it. However, I was very irritated when Chrome disabled my Youtube extension. I'm still irritated, and if FF *does* have the Google Voice extension, I'd go back to FF in a heartbeat. I MISS FIREFOX! :(

There's nothing like this for Google Voice, no, and Google's been shutting down a lot of the third party apps for Windows and Mac that could do this outside the browser. All this and they haven't updated Hangouts to integrate yet, which was supposed to be the reason they're doing this. I'm frustrated with Google lately, but they've been giving me free texting for five years so I can't complain too much.

Fyi Google Voice works fine in newer versions of Opera. You first have to download an extension from the Opera store that grants access to the Chrome store. Most extensions coded for Chrome work just fine in Opera as well as 3rd party extensions.

I use Chrome because I'm tied in for now with my Chromebook, but before that I was really getting into the new Opera. Before that I had use Firefox for a couple years.
Not really relevant to the Firefox vs. Chrome thing, but an interesting item is that you can run almost all Chrome extensions in Opera with the "Download Chrome Extension" extension by theprovider.
Pretty slick and it erases the lack of Opera-specific extensions.

DownThemAll was one of the first Firefox extensions I ever used.
I use chrome 99% of the time now, but I always have a copy of firefox installed, just for DownThemAll, I find it amazing, it is very good for things like downloading an entire podcast library, or documents that someone at work has shared on a web server.

Another thing you can actually do in Chrome is Search Keywords.
When you go into the options you can "Manage search engines" and add pretty much any website search you want. Actually Chrome does automatically keep a lot of search options in there which you have used in the past ~ they are just not working per default.
That is where the non-intuitive part about it comes in:
In order to use them you have to add them to the Default Search Engines and the only (easy) way to do this seems to be using the "Make default" button. Which then obviously requires you to make your preferred search engine the default again.

For example I can search on YouTube just by typing "yt some video" into the omnibox.

To be fair, I'm using the Beta channel of Chrome so I'm not sure how things behave in the release channel.

The Beta channel does actually have the right-click option like Firefox in your article ~ didn't notice it since I have my search engines set ages ago. If that is Beta only maybe it's worth noting that the option is in the works?

Another thing I like about Firefox is advanced settings which can be found in about:configs, there are articles and wikis out there explaining those properties, some of them are really handy and useful, not sure if Chrome has something like that. Firefox forever <3.

chrome://flags has nowhere near as many options as about:config in Firefox. chrome://flags is more about enabling and disabling developer/test features, whereas about:config in Firefox actually gets right into configuring and tweaking every little corner of the browser itself.

There are some specific chrome extensions I rely on that just isn't available in Firefox. Add to that specific profiles I have saved based on the work I'm doing (not sure if FF allows this), I will be staying put on Chrome for the foreseeable future.

Firefox has the ability to provide granular Javascript control. This is mostly exposed through add-ons(.e.g Noscript, which does exist but does not work as well on Chrome), but being able to specify what scripts are allowed to do can make browsing a lot safer.

Also, Firefox also isn't providing every little bit of your user activity to one of the biggest advertising companies in the world.

I completely agree with Harshith here. I also installed Youtube center a couple of months ago and I downloaded the .crx file from the developer's Github page . After that I opened chrome://extensions and drag and dropped the file on that page and installed the app.

I agree Firefox allows us to customize the look and feel of the browser but please don't say there are not ways we can't install software from places other then the web store.

You may have a decent internet connection and that's why won't be able to notice the difference in internet speed , but let me tell you every time I compare the two browsers, chrome always opens pages faster than Firefox . And most people also are not fan of that much customization TBH here . Installing themes is the only thing people do to make their browser look the way they want.

OK, I agree you can't install addons from other sites on chrome directly. But you can download the .crx file and drag and drop it into extensions on chrome. It is not locked down completely. You just need a workaround. Firefox is better or WAS better when it was Firefox and not a Chrome Spinoff :(

I don't get it, I'm using the Chrome alternative SRWare Iron (currently version 35) and it's still working there. Sounds like that only the official Chrome versions are affected by this, because I can still install extensions at the extensions tab there.

Justin Pot is a technology journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He loves technology, people and nature – and tries to enjoy all three whenever possible. You can chat with Justin on Twitter, right now.